Just because I have AS, do I have to respect all autists?

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i just don't want this sacred place to be overtaken by negative posts and thoughts.

I don't see how someone with AS could be a sociopath to be honest. How can someone social engineer or manipulate if you do not know all the social rules in the first place? Or look "natural" in a social setting?[/quote] Buryuntime.

I can only speak for myself, but I have hardcore AS and I am also a sociopath. I am a sociopath because the pain I have experienced from being forced to integrate has warped my mind. It wasn't like I was trying to be a social engineer or manipulate people. Instead, I was scarred by years of traumatic experiences that created a mental revulsion against normal people and contemporary living. I am sure that all AS little kids are "gentle lambs" when they are born, but bullying and the inability to cope with reality, school, and employment can create little Hitlers. When I was 6, I was innocent and harbored no ill-will or hatred towards anyone or any group. However, I was bullied in school by violent gangs of black youths, and thus today I detest contemporary culture in general, even though I know I am wrong to feel that way. To most others, my hatreds would seem irrational, and perhaps they are, but I can't get over certain traumatic events.

I never once purposefully intended in my life to "cause trouble." All I have ever wanted for myself is to be left alone and I would associate with no one if I had the chance. However, as John Donne said, "No Man is an Island." It is just impossible in this world to completely cut yourself off. As a result, I find that I am repeatedly thrust back into stressful social situations. When I went to school, I had no freedom of association, and I was forced to coexist with people I detested(of all races,) many of whom were less than cordial with me. The group that just happened to draw my ire were blacks. Alot of individual black people I have met, I like, but when I was a little boy, being bullied by their gang scarred me and I still have those deep-rooted feelings.

I guess if you were lucky enough to be diagnosed young, you might avoid the bullying and thus retain an idealistic outlook on life. In some ways, I am a "conformist." I read somewhere that AS individuals are "typically free of racism and sexism, and are very idealistic." I think that that is a huge load of BS. I am a social reactionary. I for one find NT culture, preppy culture, and especially black culture to be the polar opposite of AS culture, which is what turns me off. It is difficult for me to embrace values, ideals, or others different from my own. I spent life learning the "hard way" and thus I am paying the price for it as an adult.

Being mistreated has made me less sympathetic to the outlooks of many people. I deliberately disrespect the boundaries of those I cannot stand. I happen to thoroughly enjoy pissing them off. I could care less whether or not it's seen as "appropriate". In order to be respected, you must be respectable.

I don't respect every person out there. I don't respect jerks or bullies or as*holes. If someone is a jerk to me or bullies me, they lose my respect.

um I think you have to respect them all here because it's the WP rules.

Thi sis just like any other forum, there are a lot of things that suck and a lot of stuff that makes it worth coming back.

I never got the whole "us and them" mentality, in anything, including the ASD vs. NT thing here. As if there is difference enough between 2 humans of different minds to suggest there exists an Us and a Them based on that.

I don't think there's a rule that states you have to respect anyone, and that you automatically face termination via particle beam from orbit if you don't.

The thing I can recommend is that you treat people cordially to begin with on most occasions, as one can never be sure who people are, and you may end up saying the wrong thing to the wrong person; there are real sociopaths out there who won't think for a second to leave you bloodied on the ground before you know what happened, all because you said wrong thing to them in the mythical land of IRL.

Daniel, I think it might be somewhere in the TOS, you have to respect other members of the forum and if the other members happen to be autistic, doesn't it mean you have to respect them, here, at least? I'm not really clear on that.

I'm not really sure what this thread is about. It just looks like it's about bashing autistics and confusing AS with sociopathy. What a surprise and so unusual!

To make things more complicated psychopathy or sociopathy isn't all that cut and dry either. The basic feature is a lack of empathy, not in the sense of not being able to read people, but to be unable to feel compassion for other living creatures. However, in order to be diagnosed you have to score certain points on the psychopathy checklist, otherwise you simply have psychopathic traits or an empathy disorder as a result of something else. So until we can talk to someone who is formally diagnosed wity both I'd say it's near pointless to discuss how they might co-exist. That being said I agree that the diagnostic criteria for AS and sociopathy are contradictive, as advanced social skills are part of the sociopath diagnosis and the lack of the same is part of the AS diagnosis.

I think some people would prefer the lable of sociopath over aspergers, since sociopaths are usually stereotyped as strong and predatory, while aspies are stereotyped as weak victims. for someone who needs to boost their ego naturally it would be better to be called a sociopath, especially if you have a lot of resentment towards people in general. There's plenty more sociopathic "heores" in popular culture than there are aspie heroes.

I think Zoonic is right in some ways, but I also think that the aggressive negative stance is a bit unnecessary (people should be able to debate different opinions in a friendly, non-hostile manner).

There is a lot of patriotic aspie nationality type stuff on here, and I think most of us know it's not real (with some exceptions), but it continues to survive simply because so many people on the site have spent their whole lives not fitting in anywhere, and they have a real need to have a group of people they can identify with.

Of course we are all individuals, and of course there is no clear "us"/"them" distinction (anyone who studies psychology would know that), but for some WP members it's comforting to cling to the ideal, and it's fairly harmless (except again in a few cases where discrimination against "NT's" comes into play - that's where it crosses the line).

I think there is also a problem with terminology; because it's hard to describe aspie specific problems in daily life using the english language without reverting to that AS/NT typing, which unintentionally and unfortunately polarizes people.